This past weekend the LowCountry Dog Agility club celebrated
its 20th anniversary. We
attended the party and had a great time learning about the history of dog
agility in Charleston. It was eye-opening to hear all
the hardships the early club members had to overcome in order to enjoy
agility with their canine teammates. It really made me appreciate the
convenience of our practice field, quality of our fancy equipment and
dedication of all our founding club members. Here are some examples of the equipment from 20 years ago:
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| Old-style spring weaves |
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| Jump made by member |
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| The field today with rubberized contacts, 24"weaves, break-away tires and wooden fencing! |
After we enjoyed our agility cake and sharing our love of agility with our friends, Jefferson and I had the
opportunity to run an Advanced/Starters Standard course. I was excited to try some new handling moves
I have been practicing over the past month.
Here is our run:
The opening sequence consisted of tunnel, jump, jump (off-course
dogwalk), jump to teeter. Unfortunately, the first three obstacles were not on the tape, but I did manage to get into the correct position. I was
concerned about Jefferson taking the
off-course dogwalk so I knew that I had to be in position to front cross after
jump #2 so he would have a clear path to the jump and teeter. In the past, I would have waited until Jefferson completed the tunnel to move up course, but now
I am trusting him to know his job so I immediately moved into position once he
committed to the tunnel. This way, I was
already advancing the course and clearly showing Jefferson
his path. I was pleased with how well
this handling move worked and am more confident to trust in Jefferson
during our future runs.
The next challenge was the table. We had worked on the table extensively over
the weekend (and he made a liar out of me – getting every “down” on the table,
even during some pretty rowdy distractions!) but I still am apprehensive with
our table. Again, he made a liar out of
me and performed a fast down, so I rewarded him with lots of cheese (under his
chin so he would stay down). My next
training of the table will consist of table performance WITHOUT cheese. Hope this goes well!
From the table, we had another challenging sequence –
dogwalk, jump, tire, A-Frame. My first
concern was his hitting the down contact on the running dogwalk. He has been running so fast that he is in
such a hurry to get to the next obstacle, so he leaps past the yellow contact. I have been practicing converging the line
about the time he gets to the yellow in order to apply pressure to hit the
yellow contact. But, I wasn’t moving
quite fast enough and was not there to apply the pressure so he jumped the
contact. It is a bit close, but I bet a
judge would call it a missed contact.
Then, we had the tire to A-frame, with the tunnel being the
off-course. I was very concerned about Jefferson taking the tire and then the A-frame so I had
planned to front cross the tire. Again,
I was not in position for the front.
Instead, I cued extension and Jefferson
headed straight for the tunnel. Good
boy…bad handler! Looking back on this
run, I should have decelerated before the tire so he would have read my lack of
movement rather than reading the acceleration from my moving to get into position
for the front cross. My timing was off so this resulted in an off-course. Sure beats him standing around any day, though!
Finally, after the A-frame, there were two jumps (tunnel
off-course) before a sharp right turn to the weave poles. I was worried that Jefferson
would head for the tunnel, so I called his name to get him into handler focus
so he would turn right and get the weave pole entry. Because my timing was off whenever I called
his name, he knocked the bar (he rarely does this…ALWAYS my fault!) but got the
right turn and nailed his weave poles.
Yay! I even performed a “fancy”
handling move and front crossed his weave poles.
Overall, I was so pleased with Jefferson’s
enthusiasm and speed with this run. I
made a few handling mistakes, but am able to recognize them so I will not make
them in the future (or less likely!) I am learning that I need to cue him MUCH faster and go advance the course once he has made his commitment point. Basically, I need to keep working on getting our timing right. But, it is great to watch our runs and see us
working together as a team – moving fast and confidently – even if it is a
“wrong" course.
I sure do love my fast little
agility dog!
"Timing is everything."
~Tommy Shaw
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